Piece Hawthorne, Watcher
by Regalredstar
Summary: The moment Annie accidentally pulled off a door handle when she went to turn it, Pierce Hawthorne felt his world collapse. Part 2 of Annie Edison, Vampire Slayer


Pierce Hawthorne, Watcher - Annie Edison, Vampire Slayer Part 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Community or Buffy.

One fine day a One-Eyed Carpenter walked onto a community college campus in search of a Watcher. What he found was a little more than that.

You can ignore the Carpenter's arrival. He's not relevant to the story yet. His arrival, while undoubtedly fascinating is not where our story really began. Instead it began just over two years prior to that, when Annie Edison went to turn a doorknob and accidentally pulled it off.

"Geez Annie. How stressed are you?" Britta Perry laughed. "I promise finals aren't going to be that bad. We're at a community college for heaven's sake!"

"I'm trying not to be." Annie blushed. "I'm just worried that there's no way that I can possibly know everything that might be covered on the tests."

The others laughed as Jeff Winger and Troy Barnes worked to get the door open.

Well, most of the others laughed. Something about the whole thing felt wrong to Pierce Hawthorne's mind. He couldn't ignore the sense that there was something almost familiar about what had just happened. He shook his head. He was just being paranoid.

His feeling of unease returned in earnest later that day. When Jeff confronted Annie about ratting Senor Chang out to the Dean she instinctively pulled away from him… and accidentally threw him into the wall across the room. That, Pierce had definitely seen before. Lia had done the same thing the day that she had been called.

As he watched Annie profusely apologize to Jeff, Pierce felt a hollowness form in the pit of his stomach. Annie couldn't be The Slayer. She was too old. Wasn't she? No, he realized, she wasn't. It didn't happen often but Slayers could be called up until about age 25. Annie was only just turned 19. Plenty young enough to be called. And he knew as well as anyone that there were way more Potentials "in the wild" than under Council control. It was entirely possible that Annie was, in fact, the Slayer. Still he had to be sure.

Now under these circumstances most Watchers would have done something to test the potential Slayer's reflexes. This was normally accomplished by doing something like throwing some soft rubber balls at her. Completely non-lethal, of course. On the off chance that she wasn't the slayer, it wouldn't do to accidentally kill her. (Though Pierce knew this wasn't always the case. He'd heard that Merrick uses throwing knifes. Crazy bastard.) Pierce wasn't like most watchers. He decided that the best way to test Annie's reflexes was by pelting her with a gratuitous amount of spitballs. This he proceeded to do throughout the entirety of the psychology class that the two shared. It wasn't like Duncan would ever notice. Annie kept glaring at Pierce, but she dodged every single one. Pierce felt an odd sense of pride at that, even as he felt his heart breaking. Annie was the Slayer. Once again he was going to have to send a child that he loved out to fight the darkness. He just had to figure out how to tell her first.

In the end he chickened out. Annie was already stressed enough by the way that the others were treating her. He didn't need to add to that by introducing actual monsters into her life. Besides, he told himself, it's almost summer. There are never as many monsters about during the summertime months. And clearly whatever apocalypse killed the last slayer must have been stopped, since the world's still here. So. Everything was fine. Absolutely no need to tell Annie anything.

He was briefly worried that his decision had been a mistake when they went to rescue Annie from Chang. At least the others were rescuing Annie. Though Pierce hated to admit it, he had a sinking feeling that they were really rescuing Chang. Not that Annie would ever deliberately hut Chang. But Pierce had seen what could happen when a newly called Slayer was attacked. And that had been a Slayer who had known about her strength, one who didn't… Pierce shuddered.

Of course, it turned out that they all had worried needlessly. Annie was perfectly fine, and so, miraculously was Chang. They managed to all pass their final. (Not that Pierce knew anything about that.) They even managed to all agree to take Anthropology the next year. (Jeff, being Jeff had been against it when it was Annie's idea, but was all for it when it was his.) In short everything was, from Pierce's perspective, perfect.

Then Vaughn happened.

Pierce was standing alone on the edge of the Tranny Dance, worrying. Annie was leaving with Vaughn on a trip out east, and she wasn't coming back. Pierce had no idea how he was going to protect her once summer ended and the demons and vampires came back out to play. He wondered if her heading east meant that he would have to as well. But she would probably find it suspicious if he suddenly showed up wherever she was. Which in turn would mean that he would have to tell her the truth about the supernatural. Which he should do. But he really, really, didn't want to. He stood there brooding over the problem.

"Don't worry." Pierce turned. He had never even heard Abed approach. "She won't leave. It's not in her character arc."

Pierce decided to humor Abed. "Oh, and what is?"

"She'll realize Vaughn doesn't respect her at literally the last possible minute and break up with him. Then she'll head here to the Transformal, only to run into Jeff outside where he's fled after both Britta and Professor Slater have confessed their love for him. Annie and Jeff will talk for a few minutes before giving into their mutual attraction and kissing."

Pierce stared at Abed. "That's oddly specific."

"I can show you if you like. I have it all edited already."

"Edited? Abed are you saying that you made a film of this?"

"Of course. How else do you think that I know that it's going to happen?" He checked his watch. "Though really, I don't need to show you that way. It's all going to happen in a few minutes anyway."

"What's all going to happen in a few minutes?" Pierce blinked at the younger man.

"Everything that I just told you about. Try to keep up Pierce." There was a note of impatience in the younger man's voice.

"Sure Abed. Whatever you say." Pierce would swear that he tried to keep the disbelief out of his voice. Abed would disagree.

"You'll see," He whispered.

Pierced just shrugged as he turned away from Abed. He went back to worrying over what he was going to do about Annie. And then… Britta and Slater did exactly what Abed had said that they were going to.

"That means nothing." Pierce tried to convince himself that it was all a coincidence. "You could have seen Jeff with Professor Slater earlier, or overheard a conversation between her and Jeff. Or guessed at what Britta's reaction would be if Slater confronted her."

"I could have done all of that." Abed agreed. "But I didn't. Look, if you need more proof we can follow Jeff when he leaves, and you can see for yourself."

Pierce sighed. If Abed was right… Well actually, he didn't really want to think about what it might mean if Abed was right. Still, he had to find out. He turned his attention back to Jeff. He wasn't the only one. The majority of the rooms occupants had done the same. He watched as Jeff, in typical Jeff fashion, completely failed at making a decision.

"There he goes," Abed whispered to him as Jeff attempted to flee from the room. The two of them made to follow him, when Pierce was waylaid by Troy, who accepted his offer of a place to live.

Pierce made a ridiculously stereotypical comment in an attempt to shake off the younger man. One of these days he was going to have to apologize to the younger man for the way that he acted, but for now it was a good way to waylay any suspicion that he was anything other than a racist old lech.

Free of Troy, he made it outside just in time to watch as Annie's lips met Jeff's. As a second, longer kiss followed, Pierce felt his heart break all over again. Only this time, he realised the pain wasn't because of Annie.

"Abed," Pierce said slowly. "I think that you and I need to talk."

To be continued in Abed Nadir, Champion's Seer…

A/N: So I was going through stuff and realized that I never uploaded this on here. So if you don't read my stuff on AO3 or TTH you never saw this. Sorry. Hope you enjoy it. And might I suggest reading the series on AO3 in the future? It's way easier to manage series on there than it is here.


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